Page 31 - December 2021

Lodge 7 President John Catanzara gathered with some of the members who have opted into no-pay, stripped status wearing the sweatshirts Officer Ricardo Gonzalez and his wife, Evelyn, made with the word “STRIPPED” on the front.
what Chicago Police Officers are made of. They won’t be compro- mised.”
Laying it on the line
Lodge 7 members should know that these Hold the Line He- roes don’t consider themselves heroes. Gonzalez realized that he and others in his situation might be targeted for being called into the hall of no fame.
He is assigned to the troubled buildings unit, a Monday-to-Fri- day gig that doesn’t require him to work midnights or weekends. Several of the members who work in specialized units and re- fused to fill out the portal were among the first to be called in.
But if the Department thought it could bully these officers by threatening to reassign them from units they have worked long and hard to ascend to, well, think again.
“There was the obvious risk of losing the paycheck and the oth- er risk of getting dumped from my spot,” Gonzalez noted. “But
my dignity is not for sale.”
Big Brother was watching, looking for any member in any cir-
cumstance who could be pressured into compliance. James Mur- ray, an FTO in 015, turned out to be one of those guys.
On Oct. 28, Murray was fighting a bad cold. He had two COVID tests come up negative and was given a note authorizing him to be out until Oct. 30. They wouldn’t even see Murray at medical, however, instead routing him in line to be stripped.
He was told that refusing to fill out the portal at this point would result in nondisciplinary action. Murray was OK with that because it was a better outcome than being vaccinated. He served in the Army and did a tour in Saudi Arabia in 1991. He also had to endure a series of vaccinations, including for cholera, botulism and anthrax.
Murray was discharged in 1991, but in 1996 he started suffering
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